The National Institutes Of Health ARRA Awards $99750 Fund To IDT

Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) has been awarded $99,750 by the National Institutes of Health ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) funding to continue work on its research project ‘Gene Silencing with U1 Adapter Oligonucleotides.’

The company states, as a new class of synthetic nucleic acids, the U1 adapters are capable of down-regulating the expression of genes of interest at the pre-mRNA stage, via a mechanism of action distinct from antisense or siRNA.

The novel mechanism utilized by the U1 adapters enable it to be used additively with existing gene technologies, or individually to target genes that have not responded well to RNAi-based techniques.

The company said that the work will be performed in collaboration with Drs. Sam Gunderson and Rafal Goraczniak at SilaGene, a newly formed biotechnology company working on U1 Adaptor therapeutics.